And Perchance to Dream
by sf
Summary: A 14 year old Rufus in exile, Icicle Inn, and winter solstice. And on this darkest of nights, he can choose to fall, or to grow into his own. [No pairings, Complete. Angst. Fluff. And Hamlet.]
1. 1: Rufus

**And Perchance to Dream**  
Chapter 1 of 4  
Chapter Rating: PG   
Pairings: None.

Summary: A 14 year old Rufus in exile, Icicle Inn, and winter solstice.

* * *

I

Winter solstice. The longest night of the year.

And it had barely begun.

His breath misted momentarily against the window pane, obscuring the landscape beyond. This far north, the land was locked in the grips of winter, and an endless sea of snow cut them off from the rest of the world. Bright darkness, as far as the eye could see: moonlight or starlight hitting the snow and shattering into a million scattered beams. Cold. Black. Dead.

Some nights there were northern lights. The _Aurorae_ _Borealis_ that danced across the sky, and made it almost worthwhile to be here. Those nights he could almost smile, nose pressed against the glass as he struggled to get a better view from his window. Some nights he would open that window and lean all the way out, in a way he could never and would never dare to do if he were back in his Midgar office. And he would stay that way, feeling the winter winds bite into hands and face until all feeling was lost, until his eyes watered and the cold froze his breath and cut like a knife into his lungs. And amidst the emptiness and the glow above, he could almost forget Midgar.

"You Rufus?"

Rufus Shinra raised an eyebrow at the informal address, but continued staring out of the window. He missed Midgar. He missed the view of his city at night, illuminated by the green glare of mako reactors, when everything was reduced to a multitude of shimmering lights… it was like looking down and seeing a galaxy of stars.

"Well, you gotta be," the unknown speaker said from behind him, and there was the sound of the door shutting as he moved further into the room.

Rufus figured that he should move. At least turn around and see who it was before the stranger put a bullet in his back. No point retrieving his shotgun; it was on the other side of the room. And the only Shinra employees that were out here were his handful of guards – _gaolers_, his mind supplied cynically – and he had long since come to recognize their voices. There were no meetings scheduled this late at night, and besides, the guards wouldn't have let anyone past them without an announcement. Unless they were dead.

Which meant that whoever the intruder was… he was most certainly not dropping by for a friendly chat.

He placed a hand against the window pane, watching dispassionately as it leached all the heat from his fingers away. Miles and miles of snow, and Bone Village hours behind them by helicopter. The only civilization this tiny inn, and this was where his father sent him.

As far away as possible.

Well, no matter. It would be over soon. Assassinated on the longest night of the year. It was almost poetic. _For in that sleep of death what dreams may come…_

"You okay, kiddo?"

Rufus stiffened, removing his hand from the window and pulling his coat more tightly around himself. The room was cold, the heat either malfunctioning or insufficient to stave off the winter's bite. _Insufficient power in the absence of mako reactors_, he thought, ironically. _Although if those rumors are right, mako actually kills the planet…_

Last breaths. The cold crystallizing down his windpipe. _When we have shuffled off this mortal coil…_

An explosion of impatience: the desire to get this over and done with. "Why should it matter to you?" he asked the intruder. "Hurry up and shoot. I don't care."

There was a sudden movement in the background, and despite himself, Rufus tensed. And jumped when an arm wrapped itself around his shoulders instead of the expected bullet digging into his back. He glanced up in shock, instinctively moving to shove the offending limb away, when fingers curled in and anchored themselves in his arm, refusing to be budged.

"I'm not here to kill you, kiddo. Relax."

_Must give us pause._

He didn't recognize the person who had so rudely invaded his sanctuary and personal space. Moonlight reflected off snow showed him a sharp profile, almost too delicate to belong to a man. Long unkempt red hair took on the sheen of dried blood in the near dark, and a pair of eyes flecked with the turquoise glow of mako caught and held his.

"Who are you?" Rufus demanded. The man's black winter coat was wet with snow melt, and Rufus noted the trail of water and mud he had tracked into the room. "And kindly remove your arm."

"You should've asked for introductions first. Besides, it's bad form to just let someone shoot you like that," the man continued jovially. Rufus decided that he was getting annoying. He raised his right hand to the hand gripping his arm, brushed across the wrist, and applied pressure just _there_—

--the man let go instantly, yelping and shaking out his hand, which was probably going numb already. "_Whoa_, kid. You musta learnt that from Tseng. Remind me to kick his ass, the bastard."

Rufus raised an eyebrow and stepped away, brushing off the sleeve of his jacket. "I asked you a question."

"So you did." The man shook his hand again and stuffed it into a pocket. "They call me Reno at work."

"Reno." Rufus narrowed his eyes. "Did you have an appointment?"

Reno blinked, then exhaled his breath noisily in a sigh. "You're a strange one. Is work the only thing you ever think of?" He held up a hand as Rufus' expression turned stormy. "Woah. Relax. You mean Tseng didn't tell you I was coming?"

"We," and Rufus could feel the irritation boiling up through sheer reflex at the mere thought, "were stuck without communications for the past two weeks. They still haven't brought it up." _Caught in a blizzard out in the middle of nowhere with all signals down. Could have been lethal. Sometimes I wish it _had _been lethal._ "Are you a courier?"

Reno bowed extravagantly. "Yep. Glorified courier. That's me." He reached in his coat, pulling out several envelopes. "Dispatches from HQ."

Rufus did not take the proffered handful. "I don't have any dispatches."

The man – no, the teenager… Reno couldn't have been much older than himself – looked momentarily surprised. "Your old man doesn't send you anything? Thought you were the Vice Prez and all that."

"No," Rufus said, his voice deceptively even. "He doesn't."

Reno shrugged. "Anyway, these are from Tseng."

"Tseng—" a sudden suspicion hit him. "Show me your ID."

It took a lot of fumbling and searching in various pockets before the requested identification card was produced, during which Reno had to unbutton his coat to reveal a rumpled black two piece suit, _sans_ tie. Rufus glanced at the thin sheet of plastic emblazoned with the Shinra Company logo.

"A Turk." _I thought so_.

Reno grinned. "Just got my wings last week. And Tseng thought it would be fun to send me off on a glorified mail run." He shivered, buttoning the coat again. "And damn, it's _freezing_ up here. Whatcha old man send you here for, anyway? He's thinking of building a reactor here?"

Rufus finally deigned to accept the letters from Reno. He moved across the room, casually retrieving the shotgun and switching on the lights before collapsing into an armchair. "To rot. Or freeze," he replied, tearing open the envelopes. They were soggy.

"I thought you were supposed to be on a business trip." Seeing no other available chair in the room, Reno took the bed.

Rufus shot him a brittle smile, but did not reply. Now, only _now_ did it hit him – correspondence from _Tseng_. 2 years since he had seen the man, 2 years of exile from Midgar, and this only about the second or third time he had received anything from him…

The contents of the letter were dry, professional, reading like a report delivered to a superior, a Turk to his Vice President. Typical Tseng. It talked about the Turks, namely one Reno Last-Name-Unknown, and how Avalanche was becoming more than merely a minor nuisance, how investigations into the group's activities was proceeding, about minor clashes in Wutai… and one line, right at the end, that sent a sharp pang of pain lancing through him: _The Icicle Area is cold at this time of the year. Take care of yourself_.

He stared at that line in silence, lost in thought.

* * *

End Part 1 of 4. 


	2. 2: Reno

II

The kid looked like he was going to cry.

Reno hadn't known what to expect when Tseng sent him chasing after the Vice President with just a handful of apparently personal letters and reports. Popular rumor had it that Rufus' title was an empty one, a vice-presidency in name only. And that, to Reno, meant that there shouldn't have been any paperwork to bring the Shinra princeling. And he'd grumbled every freezing mile of the way to Icicle Inn.

Now, looking at Rufus clutching that note like it was his dearest possession in the world, he was starting to think that maybe the trip had been worthwhile. For the kid, anyway.

He'd _expected_, subconsciously or unconsciously, to meet some arrogant bratling with an inflated opinion of himself, commanding his little kingdom up here in the frozen north with his guards running to serve his every whim. He'd found, instead, the guards carousing in front of the fireplace in the main hall, while the Shinra heir himself stood by a window in a darkened room and froze himself to death. A very young, very depressed, and apparently suicidal Shinra heir.

"_Take care of him,"_ Tseng had said, pulling him to one side and shoving the dispatches into his hand.

"_But boss, I'm only there for as long as it takes to drop these off and get back…"_

Tseng had looked at him then, in that way that said: _You know what I mean_.

He hadn't. Well, not really. Not until he got here.

"Thank you," Rufus said distantly, apparently coming back to himself, and rifling quickly through the rest of the papers. "Was there any word from my father?"

"Nope," Reno said. A muscle twitched in Rufus' cheek, and for a moment, Reno was quite convinced that he saw dashed hopes and rising frustration in those blue eyes. Then Rufus blinked, and the gaze that met his was level and emotionless.

"Very well. You're dismissed."

_Not so quick, kiddo. I still have secondary orders to carry out_.

"Got a reply for anyone in HQ?"

"Not at this time."

Reno paused, as Rufus returned his gaze to the window. Outside, the snow had started to fall again.

"Kid…"

"That's Vice President to you," Rufus said coldly.

"You okay?" Reno continued. "You know, I suck at this shit, but you looked pretty damned upset when I came in."

Silence greeted him for a moment. Then Rufus turned back, one elegant golden eyebrow arched. "Did Tseng also ask you to babysit me?"

"You bet," Reno said, kicking off his boots, and sprawling backwards on the bed. "I'm a Turk. Can't go around failing my missions."

"You may inform Tseng that I am fine."

"What, and lie to my superior officer? No way, man. Veld may be the one in charge of hirin' and firin', but if Tseng gets pissed off, I wouldn't give a marshmallow in Hell's chances for my—"

"—You have a long trip ahead of you tomorrow," Rufus cut him off. "Good night."

"No," Reno told the ceiling. "You are most _definitely_ not alright if you allow a complete stranger to waltz into your room and tell him to shoot you."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Rufus was clenching his jaw. The staff back at HQ called him emotionless, and Reno had to admit that he was pretty far ahead of his game, for a fourteen year old… but he hadn't quite mastered the art yet. Maybe in a few years. But now, he could see the warring conflict of emotions dancing across that young face.

"Don't you want to know how Tseng is doing?" he asked, keeping his tone casual. _Go on, kid. Take the bait…_

"I understand that Tseng is capable of looking after himself," the too-calm reply came.

_Wow. You're good at this. Time for some serious firepower. _"…I hear that he's in love with Scarlet."

The sudden flash of shock on the boy's face told him that he had hit his mark. _Possessive, aren't we? As far as I know both of you are only friends, but it's easy to think that he's forgotten about you, isn't it? Even with his letter sitting there in your hands, it's been two years since you've seen the guy, and since he _was _your bodyguard since you were twelve, you probably got used to having his wholesale attention…_

"…I was kidding," Reno admitted, and braced himself for the expected storm.

"That," Rufus bit out, "Was in extremely bad taste."

Reno flipped himself upright again and shot him a grin. "You need to relax, you know. Loosen up. This trip will be over soon enough, whether you worry about it or not."

"Two years." Rufus turned to the window, pressing knuckles into the glass. "_Two years._ And still no recall order." He exhaled quietly, and his breath misted against the pane.

"What do you need an order for? You're the Vice Prez, aren't you? Surely that's gotta count for something."

"It doesn't." Rufus' words were so soft that he had to strain to catch them.

"Then make it count for something. You can't just let your old man push you around like that. You know what? I think he's just shoving you off to get you out of his sight. I bet he's forgotten all about you."

Rufus whirled, furious. "How—"

"Yep. He's definitely forgotten all about you."

Rufus was seething. "Don't you think I don't know that? The number of months we've spent here without so much as new orders?"

Reno shrugged. "Seems to me that your job's done. You should pack up and go home. You don't need a recall order to do that, you know. You're the freaking Vice Prez. Use it. Stop letting them use you."

"And then what? Get banished off again to the Ancients know where? Mideel, perhaps?"

"Honestly, I wouldn't know how the system works. But you do. If you don't want to leave, there has to be a way to stop it. Stop sulking and fix your own damn problems, kid. Tseng will help you, but only if you get off your pretty ass and go and get his help."

Whoops. Maybe he'd gone a _biiiit_ too far with that one. Maybe it was time to… hm… call for back up.

He tugged his PHS out of his pocket. "Tseng's number is speed dial number 2. Go ahead. The bill's charged to the company. And tell him he owes me a pay raise for this one."

"Communications are down," Rufus pointed out.

"We're on a special satellite network." He tossed the phone across the room, and turned to leave. "Oh yeah. I'm leaving at 0800 tomorrow. Heard that your chopper got nuked. Mine's big enough to take you, but we'll have to leave the grunts behind. Show up on the helipad if you want a lift."

As he sauntered out of the door, hands stuck in his pocket and whistling some jaunty seasonal tune, he heard the sound of phone buttons being pressed.

* * *

Part 3 and 4 to come. 


	3. 3: Tseng

**III: Tseng**

The dry scratching of his pen had been the only sound in the room, until his phone rang, shattering the silence.

Sighing, for that particular chime meant a Turk was calling, and that was never good news, he reached for his hands free set and clicked it on, sparing a moment to glance at the caller ID. "Reno, what is it this time?"

"Ts…Tseng?"

The voice that reached him across the line wasn't the brash drawl of his newest recruit. It was hesitant, somewhat familiar and yet not, which meant that Reno had evidently gotten into trouble and his phone had fallen into enemy hands, or—

--The thought arrived late, and blindsided him like a Shinra delivery truck. Reno's first assignment. To the Icicle Area. Carrying a load of dispatches. Oh. _Oh_.

Breath stopped. His heart might have stopped, caught in the pain that somehow, he had missed the boy growing up, missed his voice breaking and deepening into something that he failed to recognize on first hearing…

"Rufus?" he asked, throat constricting around the word.

"Tseng." A quiet exhale of breath. "I got your dispatches."

Breath. Heartbeat, one thump in a silence drawn so taut he thought it was going to snap.

"That's good, sir."

Breath.

A pause, both of them searching for words to say. Awkwardness. Two partners in the social dance fumbling for lines, tripping over each other's feet.

_I hope you're doing well. I hope that Reno didn't tick you off. I hope that…_

Sentences spluttering to the fore, dying away, discarded letters ripped from the writing pad and thrown into the bin. _I hope that you haven't changed utterly beyond recognition—_

"You should take a vacation. Come out here and have a skiing holiday. The snow is gorgeous," Rufus said at last, all sunny and utterly fake nonchalance.

"Rufus-sama, I wish I could—"

"We're currently getting 24 hours of night, here, but the lights are pretty. So are the stars. You can't really see them from Midgar."

A small smile curved his lips. "I'll try my best, sir. The holiday season is coming up, after all."

Unfortunately, the holiday season for Turks meant twice the amount of work, as the President wined and dined Midgar's – no, the world's elite – and was wined and dined in turn. As Rufus well knew.

"Strange how the President hasn't called me in to attend any of the functions this year," Rufus said. "Perhaps I'm no longer photogenic enough?"

"I highly doubt it, sir."

A short laugh, much deeper than he remembered it. "Flattery, Tseng? Or are you trying to hit on me? Reno said that you were having an affair with Scarlet."

_Reno_ _said_ what? "Reno is getting janitor duty for a month. For spreading rumors which are _patently untrue_."

Rufus never grinned, or least, Tseng hadn't seen that particular expression out of him for all the years that he had known him. But perhaps he would be smiling.

"Don't. He lent me his PHS, after all. I didn't know that Shinra had satellite equipped ones."

"They're new," he replied. "The Science department just issued the prototypes a few months ago. We're field testing them."

"How secure are these lines?"

"Much more than the standard ones. Our uplink is private and encrypted. Only Turks have access to it."

"And the President?"

_The…_ when had Rufus started addressing his own father that way? With that absent tone in his voice that suggested that he could have been talking to anyone? And the room was suddenly colder, and darker, and he couldn't help but ask himself if perhaps he'd made a mistake, standing back and letting the President send his son far afield for so long, away from the only people he even began to trust…

"Tseng?"

It stung, how unfamiliar his voice was now. "Not even the President, sir. But perhaps the Vice President—"

"—don't call me that. Don't you, of all people, call me that."

He paused. "I apologize, sir." And he wanted to stop there, remembering a wide-eyed child whose life was slowly being eked out of him under the crushing weight of his training and responsibilities…

…he felt his jaw clench.

_You do him no favors by trying to protect him from what is inevitable._

"—But," he added, and his fingers tightened around his pen while he said it, as if he were signing some death warrant, "—you _are_ the Vice President, sir. You can't evade that responsibility by pretending otherwise."

Sudden silence greeted him from the other end, the almost casual banter they had built up shattered in one terrible blow.

Tseng squeezed his eyes shut, willing his breath to stay even. _A Turk always puts his job first. A Turk completes his job at all costs. When it comes to your protection, Rufus-sama, it means telling you the words you need to hear, not the words you want to…_

What was it like over there in the Icicle Area? He had never been there during winter, himself. There had never been any need to. It was a quiet area, and quiet areas rarely attracted the attention of the President's hired killers.

_Twelve year old Rufus, animatedly talking about his first trip out of MIdgar. Small hands shoving maps across the table, outlining routes and reciting the things he had learnt about those places – all in books, of course. Blue eyes sparkling as he promised to be back soon, in a few months, father can't send me away for so long, can he?_

_I don't know, sir._

_You're such a pessimist, Tseng._

_It's part of the job, sir._

_Don't miss me too much. I'll be back before you know it._

_Is that an order, sir?_

_Yes. It is. And so is: 'Try not to get killed.'_

_I hear and obey, Rufus-sama._

"Funny thing," Rufus was saying. "Reno was just…"

He waited patiently for the boy to finish the sentence, but there was just silence over the line, and the slight crackle of static.

"Reno?"

"Nothing." A tiny tremor in that voice. "Nothing at all. Have a good holiday season, Tseng."

"Sir…"

Silence again. No long tone of the other side hanging up. Just Rufus' breath, feather light. And something that might have been a sense of severely neglected duty nagging at him.

"Funny how the years change people, isn't it?" Rufus said at last.

"I regret my inability to be there."

"I'll bring you a souvenir."

_I'll bring you a souvenir. And Veld too, although he's been cranky recently._

_He's been stressed—_

_You always have an excuse for everything, don't you? No, and don't tell me it's part of the job. _

_A helpless smile. It's part of the training, then. _

_Whirr of helicopter blades. Someone yelling, several Shinra MPs milling around uncertainly. Rufus, probational Vice President, standing there on the rooftop, a slim briefcase clutched in one hand and a duffel in the other, and looking slightly lost in his new suit as the wind whipped his hair into his eyes. The President nowhere in sight._

_You should go. It's time._

_Turks did not show emotion. He would die before he admitted to the lump in his throat, to the sudden surge of protectiveness and concern, the urge to straighten the lapels of the boy's jacket and to remind him to keep his weapons on hand at all times…_

_Tseng. A small frown, golden brows drawing together. Your tie is askew. How unlike you._

_Is it?_

_He glanced down, but his suit was as it always was: impeccable. When he glanced up again, Rufus was striding across the rooftop to the chopper, head held high. He did not glance back._

"And one for Veld too," he said, unable to help it.

"And one for Veld," Rufus said agreeably. "Tseng, I—"

A sudden wash of white noise.

The last word, torn in two, dying in an electronic shriek. A click, a hum, a long tone, then the operator, impassive: "Signal lost. Please try again later."

He clicked the phone shut and shoved it into his pocket with perhaps more force than was strictly necessary. And dropped his head into his hands.

It was a long time before he realized that the pen had shattered in his grip.

* * *

Review? 


	4. 4: Shinra

**IV: Shinra**

"Just entered airspace over Midgar, boss. We'll be there in a few minutes. Keep the helipad clear, yo?"

"The helipad," Tseng replied icily, "Is always clear. Besides—"

"Besides nothing. You'll meet me on the flight deck, won't you?"

"Why _should_ I?" he ran ink stained fingers through his hair, sighing at the unfinished pile of reports in front of him. Bad enough that it was peak season and he was behind time already, without the fact that he had taken himself down to the firing range after that disastrous phone call and spent the entire evening emptying magazines into paper targets.

Maybe it was some long lost echo of Wutai, that when one owed a duty to some_one_, not something. A Company meant all of nothing to him, except that it was the empire of the man he owed his loyalty to. Who had once been worth owing a loyalty to, some bitter voice said in the back of his head. Who had once been a charismatic, charming leader who had gradually swept the world up in his vision, bringing prosperity and life everywhere he went, and the promise of a new world…

Wutai had been old, recalcitrant, unable to embrace the future and all that it entailed. Or so he had thought, a long time ago, when the fire of youth and rebellion had run high in his veins and he had turned his back on a country he thought stupid and backward. Never knowing what was it he had lost, until he had lost it utterly beyond recall.

And now his Emperor was a smirking money-grubbing businessman in a red suit, driving the world into poverty in his mad quest for money, stamping all over the dreams he had once promised he would deliver. And his Empire was a corrupted cesspit, seething with more political intrigue than the Wutai court itself, and with less care for those under them.

No surprise then, that he had looked to the young heir as the answer, perhaps, to this nightmare he had entangled himself in the rashness of youth. The prince, the promise of undoing past wrongs, if only the right people would stand at his side and whisper the right words into his young ears. Just a hope, at the very first, but he had been there to watch him grow up – too soon and too fast, but that was inevitable in this world – and had seen the quiet strength under that fragile exterior, that sharp intellect that learnt too soon how to play the power games that surrounded him. And had seen those blue eyes both potential nightmare and potential redemption.

_There is a leader we would be proud to serve_.

Veld was a man he admired a lot, whose professionalism he sought to emulate and whose shoes, it seemed, he was destined to fill one fateful day. A day he hoped would be long in coming. But Veld was a man to whom 'Shinra' meant the Company and not the family name, to whom the young heir was merely another name on the orders that came down from the President. Important, perhaps, but only in that the President wanted him kept alive, and Turks always executed their orders without question or hesitation.

Until one night the orders had come in with 'top secret' and 'classified' and 'attend to this personally' stamped all over them, and the morning had left Veld slumped in his chair, a gun still cradled in his hands, and somewhere out in the building, an eight year old princeling blankly holding his mother's body, blue eye dry and more lifeless than the body in his arms.

And that was when Tseng had seen the doubts that had long festered in his heart and mind, first take seed and start to bloom in Veld's eyes.

It was paltry consolation, being there for a boy whose mother they had murdered.

It was guilt, the way the child pushed him away, the day he donned that white suit and never wore a different color again.

It was painful relief, even for one who thought himself hardened to all forms of human emotion, when the boy finally broke the silence with one line:

_I know it wasn't your fault._

Every Wutainese knows where his loyalty lies; it is deep rooted, instinctive, not penciled away in a signature on a line, nor bought with money. It is the subtle harmony of the soul, the tandem of footsteps down a long corridor, the silhouette of the back you stand behind.

And when he had looked into icy blue that day, he knew he had been caught, utterly and completely.

-

"Because I brought you a Christmas present!" Reno said. "And come on boss, I'm landing in a minute or so…"

He was moving even before he realized it, chair falling behind him and all his papers tumbling to the ground, and he didn't care. He was through the door of his office and into the elevator, fingers shaking inexplicably as they swiped the keycard through. Biting back shaky breath, forcing tremors away—

_Ding_, all too fast, the echo of his footsteps as he clattered up the stairs from 69th floor to 70th, shouldering his way past the guards, and—

--cold blast of wind from blades that were already slowing to a stop. The roar against his ears bringing him the sound of a raised voice, and his eyes snapped across the distance to see the President, livid, gesticulating as he yelled: "I never ordered you back, how _dare_ you come back without authorization?"

He saw Reno first, fire bright against the sky, but his gaze slid past the Turk, following the line of one black suited arm where it came to rest on a white clad shoulder.

And to an achingly familiar blue gaze slid past the President, and came to rest on him.

The smallest of smiles, the fractional dip of that golden head as he excused himself, and Rufus Shinra was striding past his father, waving aside the ranting with a flick of a gloved hand, dismissing everything else in the world for…

…for him, Tseng realized, as the boy came to a halt just two steps away.

And there was pain in his gaze, both new and old, but also something else.

"Welcome back, sir."

Joy. Joy and happiness and gladness, carefully shaded in the slightest upturn of the corner of his mouth, in the way the light caught and held shining eyes.

"Thank you, Tseng."

Older, taller, broader of shoulder. But that smile upon that face was the same hesitant one it had been two years ago, the same uncertainty of how just far propriety led and how far it should. The same awkwardness, recalling always watchful eyes and image and—

"Screw it," Rufus muttered. "Two years should have taught me that holding back simply means depriving yourself." And suddenly his arms were around Tseng's neck, his head buried in his shoulder, as Tseng froze in shock.

"I missed you," were the soft words in his ear, and he dimly registered Reno trying his damnest to restrain one furious President in the background.

_Screw it_, he thought, and his arms came up as well. _There comes a time when propriety and rank are not important enough to stand in the way of what you hold dear…_

"I missed you too, Rufus-sama."

"Then all is well," Rufus said, while Tseng's brain summarily registered gibberish like how the boy's head fit into the curve of his shoulder blade just _so_, how newfound strength in once too-skinny arms turned his grip into something sure, confident, possessive. How the world suddenly fell away and _nothing else mattered_, just his liege-lord _back _and _safe_…

…and he almost didn't recognize the wave of happiness breaking over his heart, so caught up in the relief and the sheer rightness of it all.

"_Boy's got a _right_, sir. You didn't say he _wasn't _to come back either," Reno was saying. "And he's the Vice President. He has to attend the annual Christmas function. What's a Turk to do when the VP orders him to ferry him back to HQ so that he can carry out his Vice Presidentally duties? Plus Christmas is an off day, and employees can do what they like, can't they, sir? And yeah, you could fire me, but you'll have to take it up with Tseng over there, and if you want to fire _him_, you'll have to take it up with Veld, and you know, the Department's short as it is these days…"_

"Give that Turk a Christmas bonus," Rufus chuckled, letting go of him at last. "If the old man doesn't approve it, it can come out of the Vice President's budget."

"As good as done, sir," Tseng said.

"And now…" Rufus turned, as the President stormed across the helipad towards them. "Will you stand by my side, Tseng?"

"Always, sir."

"Then nothing can stand in my way."

_And at last, the heir comes into his own,_ Tseng thought.

"Less noble in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," Rufus murmured, "Than to take arms against a sea of troubles." And he smiled. "And thus to end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks; through neither death nor sleep, nor dreams of death, but by courage under the waking day."

And behind them, the morning sun broke through the clouds, to cast the in gold the silhouette of the white clad back he stood behind.

-End-

* * *

Author's notes:

Rufus is quoting extensively from Hamlet in the first chapter and at the end. The full soliloquy is as follows:

**HAMLET**

To be, or not to be: that is the question:  
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer  
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,  
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,  
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;  
No more; and by a sleep to say we end  
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks  
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation  
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;  
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;  
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come  
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,  
Must give us pause: there's the respect  
That makes calamity of so long life;  
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,  
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,  
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,  
The insolence of office and the spurns  
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,  
When he himself might his quietus make  
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,  
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,  
But that the dread of something after death,  
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn  
No traveller returns, puzzles the will  
And makes us rather bear those ills we have  
Than fly to others that we know not of?  
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;  
And thus the native hue of resolution  
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,  
And enterprises of great pith and moment  
With this regard their currents turn awry,  
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!  
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons  
Be all my sins remember'd.

-

In short, I suppose this could be called a 'To be or not to be' piece, whereby Rufus gets kicked out of his 'not-to-be'-ness in Chapter 1, to 'taking arms against a sea of troubles' in Chapter 4 and taking his destiny into his own hands. To which end he no longer quotes blindly, but wrests the soliloquy into something of his own creation, stepping outside the bounds of propriety to get what he wants.

…Or I could be talking a whole lot of rubbish. grin

Elvaron / sf, December 20, 2005

Final word count: 5, 562

Archived: characters and places copyright Square-soft Enix. Hamlet, of course, is credited to one William Shakespeare.


End file.
